It’s that time of year again; time for gorging on turkey and stuffing, sleeping on the sofa, and turkey sandwiches for a week. Of course, since we’re in China, things are a bit different. Last year on Thanksgiving we’d just arrived in Zhangjiagang and so we didn’t do anything in particular. This year, however, we [...]
Summer (one of our coworkers) had a baby about 3 months ago. In China, that means you throw a huge dinner party for anyone you’ve ever met, sort of like a christening. So on Saturday night we were picked up by her husband and driven out into the countryside to their home. There we were [...]
These are some of the major psychological differences between people in China and people in the West. Understanding these differences is key if you want to be happy in China. China The West Historical Context Very populous country. Low/middle population density Frontiers open but dangerous (northern barbarians) or closed (seas, mountains) Frontier open and [...]
Recently, all the teacher’s apartments were upgraded to the new digital cable TV system. We now have a set-top box with almost 100 channels, up from the 10 or so we had before. Unfortunately, that’s 90 new channels in Chinese. There’s still only one English TV channel, CCTV9, and it rarely has much worth watching. [...]
Serrated knives never made it to China. Though they are sometimes available in Western-style steak restaurants, the average Chinese household doesn’t have a single serrated knife. Yesterday, I tried to buy a bread knife, and found not a single serrated knife in the local hypermarket. At a guess, it’s because Chinese cooking is almost always [...]
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